Ask Me Anything: Phil_Ozzy_Fer

From the user name and our discussion in the other ama, I take it you're interested in philosophy. Am I right? If so, do you have a favourite branch? Favourite school?

Also, favorite twig and favorite university?

How'd you convince someone to read philosophy? What would you recommend as introductory material?

Do you have a favorite philosophy-thematic movie?

What's the thing you have yet to try ttrpg-wise and you're really itching to do so?

Do you prefer cooperative or competitive boardgames? What's your favorite of each type?

What languages do you know and which one would you love to learn?

How did you find GP?

If you were put in charge of developing the next edition of any RPG, which one would you choose and what would you change? (Choosing D&D because it's the most famous isn't allowed. Choosing it for other reasons is)

What book or movie setting would you love to play in as an RPG? What song could inspire an RPG adventure?

You are correct, it is a subject that I enjoy. It is purely a leisurely interest though, rather than an academic one. You won't find me scouring journals to stay current on the latest trends in analytic philosophy, for example. I don't know that I have a favourite branch per se, but over the years I've trended towards concepts that can be most readily applied to daily life, without requiring an elaborate argument to explain why something is applicable. As much as I love epistemology and ethics, what do these ideas really mean during the average person's daily grind? Sometimes this stuff all feels entirely too abtract to be meaningful, even if it's interesting.

I guess in that respect the approach used by Pragmatists, i.e. "the truth is what works", so to speak. A very specific example would be the schoolteacher-turned-philosopher, John Dewey, who saw education as a way of shepherding society towards a better tomorrow. He spent a lot of time trying to incorporate philosophy into educational processes. It wasn't all viable, but he made real efforts to make philosophy functional. Hopefully, that answers the question. I'm only halfway through my first cup of coffee. I may need at least twice that before I'm coherent!

I love nature for its diversity. How could I possibly choose one twig over another?

I don't have a favourite university, but there are a lot of institutions that have some remarkable collections in their libraries. Some of the weirder stuff of note are the libraries that house books bound in human skin (That's real, they exist) or the National Brewing Library at Oxford.

Do you brew your own beer or make your own wine?

This is a tough question to ask because there isn't a single answer to give to this. I'll try and answer with a pet peeve of mine. I cannot stand people passionately arguing for what they believe in or stand for from an uninformed perspective. This happens a lot with politically motivated disputes, and so to that end, I wish people would take time to immerse themselves in the things they say that they care about. Do you say you're all in on capitalism? Brilliant! Take the time to actually understand it and learn what it is, and isn't. Do you want to be a proselytizer for environmental awareness.? Amazing! Go to the library and do some research so you understand more about the subject. The unexamined life is not worth living, and frankly tedious for everyone that has to hear soundbites regurgitated ad nausea as if they were generally indisputable facts in and of themselves.

As far as introductory material is concerned, speaking from my professional observations, no one responds to everything the same way. I hesitate to suggest individual thinkers or titles because if there's one subject that is a burden on itself, it's philosophy. Sometimes brilliant minds are just downright unreadable. So hear are three ideas:

1).If you want an actual text, then I'd say try reading The Apology. I say this because the Socratic dialogues are presented almost like theatre, rather than long-winded essays. It makes them more accessible. Also, this particular work is Socrates' defence of himself before the courts, and it is a passionate and ideological critique of democracy, populism, and other things.

2). Try just immersing in something that engages your interest, and then interrogate it. "Why is this thing the way that it is?" or "What inspired this?" and see where asking questions like that takes you.

3). Try reading a current events type book, and see if you aren't interested to explore the topic further. If you're not, no problem, but if you are then you might have taken the first step on your journey.

4). Existential Comics. This is a webcomic that explores philosophy. Here's one that features D&D. Or this one about the Invention of Philosophy. <-- this one still makes me laugh out loud.

A philosophy thematic movie would have to be Waking Life.

For a game I've yet to try but want to, I've struggled to get into PbtA games, but I own Legacy: Life Among the Ruins. I love the premise and would like to give the game a try. Beyond that, too many games to admit to!!!

Can confirm. It made me laugh too

What's the best thing for you about living in Montreal? Island or mainland?

I don't know that I have a preference, but I've probably been more habituated toward competitive games throughout my life. As for competitive, maybe Azul? There are a lot of classic games I like a lot, such as Stratego or Backgammon, but as for something that came into being more recently, Azul is an excellent game. I don't know if I'd say favourite if such a thing can be said to exist, but a cooperative game a couple of friends and I had a blast playing was a game called Forbidden Island.

I speak English and French and have no idea how to answer the second part of this question. Since I live in North America, I feel like it would only be rational to speak one of the languages indigenous to the continent, such as Kanien'kéha. Alternatively, I'd love to speak a language that produced the books and art that have helped me define who I am, but there isn't just one. Greek, Irish, German, Japanese, and I could keep going.

I have no recollection of how I found my way to GP. My real-life gaming group had broken up and I started searching around for other ways to play games. That search led me to GP, and I've been here ever since.

If could take charge of working on a second edition of 13th Age, I'd probably take a look at the use of dice pools in that game. At times they can be downright silly, and there is even a note about bypassing them in the core book. I've always felt that if the game's creators felt the need to amend the usage of that part of the game, then it's a part that should probably be modified to function differently.

A book or movie setting that might make a good RPG would be Pern, created by Anne McCaffrey, from the novel series starting with Dragonriders of Pern. It is a very well-conceived of the world and could accommodate a variety of different playing styles. Science-fantasy. Telepathic sentient dragons, the Thread as an environmental hazard, good vs. evil, and so on. It is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of world-building genre fiction has produced. If nothing else, the novels are worthwhile just for that.

How about Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns for a song that could inspire an adventure? The composition is based on a poem by Henri Cazalis where Death comes on Halloween to play violin causing the dead to rise from their graves and dance in the graveyard until dawn. I don't think the picture in the YouTube clip actually has anything to do with the song, and is probably something the person that posted it really liked.

Yes! I am able to brew my own beer. I've never tried wine because I don't have a good place to let it sit for the long periods of fermentation required.

When we (my spouse and I) first moved to Montreal, and by extension Canada, we lived on the island. In my opinion, the best part about it was that everything feels like it was at arm's length. It never really takes a lot of time to go to the doctor, the grocery store, a nice green space, or whatever. The city is very easy to navigate in that respect. However, now that we have kids, we live off the island because we needed different accommodations for the growing family. What's best about living off the island is probably the easier access to what other parts of the province can offer. I feel like you could draw a line between Montreal and the rest of the province, and living in one or the other provides particular advantages. Mosquitos are damned, we like making use of the provincial park system in the summer. Quality hiking and camping, and that's much easier to enjoy now that we live off the island.

It could be that journalists believe in verification, but their editors/publishers may rush essentially rumors to print with a "Print first, retract later" approach.

Is that what you mean?

1. What is your favorite die size and why?
2. What game do you most want to play but haven't or no one seems to run?
3. What is the coolest looking rpg book you've read?

I'm not trying to be confrontational at all when I respond to this, but I don't think there's a "print first, retract later" mentality.

This is a huge issue, and many people have written about the integrity of journalism. What I'll start with is that most news outlets are businesses. Media economics is a massive topic. Every organization has some editorial mandate. If you take two stories on the same subject from two different media outlets and put them next to each other, you'll see what I mean. The outlet has a profile of who they think their readers are, and they'll prepare content with that profile in mind. That doesn't mean the facts change, but the presentation of the facts will be modified depending on the media outlet's audience.

That's the first thing. Another is that journalists are obligated to cite what people tell them, and they're trained to lead with official sources whenever possible. The infamous "alternative facts" moment is a good example of this. Everyone knew it was nonsense, but the journalists in the room aren't there to agree or disagree, that's for the editorial pages and talking heads. The journalists are only there to cover the events they're assigned, and they can't pass judgment on what happened. Everyone knows this, and people will work to exploit that. You'll hear students in journalism school question whether or not they are simply glorified stenographers, and it's a result of the obligation to present the facts as they are presented. To that end, not all journalism is the same. Reporting an event is not the same as investigative reporting, but sometimes people don't realize that, nor that editorials aren't to be considered news.

Then there's the controversy that the press is biased. Any alleged bias will be recounted differently depending on who you discuss the topic with. If you call a media outlet biased, and people do it because they know they can, then the outlet has to deal with the accusation of bias before it can get back to presenting the information. This causes more problems with some organizations than others. Additionally, there are concepts like "cognitive dissonance" (the inability to process contradictory information) and "confirmation bias" (people will look for information that conforms to how they see the world, i.e. the information confirms how they see the world therefore it is good) that are present among media consumers. The news is a product to be consumed, and I don't think there's a perfect answer to this issue. All of these things influence how people process the information they use to make decisions in their everyday lives.

I'm trying not to turn this into an essay, but I hope this makes sense. Sometimes I wish people had a better understanding of the process that leads to how news is created. It might help with some of this stuff, and I've advocated incorporating this kind of content into formal education.

1). I like a d20 a lot, to be honest. Out of all of the polyhedral dice, it's probably the most iconic for the hobby. Also, I've never seen it done, but I feel like you run a game using 5d20 for percentile dice, as opposed to 2d10. It's obviously way less efficient, but it might look kind of cool.

2). One game I'd like to play is Legacy: Life Among the Ruins. A game I've never seen ANYONE run is Shadows of Esteren. This is kind odd as well because the game won multiple Ennie awards. To really underline this point though, not only have I never seen anyone play it but I've never seen it suggested to be played. It won Silver at the Ennies for Product of the Year. Since Legacy is a PbtA game, I feel like it might be easier to convince someone to give it a try, but Shadows of Esteren is probably a tough sell.

3). Coolest looking RPG book...Hmmm. Just one? As I sit here and type this a couple of examples come to mind:

- 1,000-Year-Old Vampire, this game has to be somewhere near the pinnacle of what RPG design can be.
- Alien the RPG, Free League nailed it with this game. I've said this before, but this game is amazing visually.

I'd never heard of this game so I did some research. The art and design seem really good, and solid mechanics, but it doesn't have anything to make it stand out I think. It's also really vague on what the game is actually about and what characters would do. But now I know about a new game lol.

What was your favorite character you've played on GP and what was your favorite character you've seen someone else play on GP?